


Lopsided

by DollyPop



Category: Soul Eater
Genre: Canon Het Relationship, F/M, Pre-Canon, Self Confidence Issues, Teen Romance, Teen Years, Teenagers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-23
Updated: 2016-05-23
Packaged: 2018-06-10 07:03:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6944617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DollyPop/pseuds/DollyPop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From what he remembered of his partnership with Spirit, those of the female persuasion did not like to have their mammaries commented upon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lopsided

He knew it was her when he walked past the bathroom, listened to the sobbing, and felt something in his chest clench. And he was frustrated at himself like he always was. Lord Death had told him that it was normal for him to feel that way about his partner, about Marie. To care for another being was favorable. Especially after what he did to Spirit.

It was a good sign, as Death would see it.

But, really, Stein just saw it as an inconvenience. One that he noticed was happening more and more in regards to Marie, who was as fiercely protective as a fifteen year old could possibly be of their Meister. The detentions she’d gotten for throwing kids through walls and trees, through windows and ceilings for all the things they’d said about him had finally climbed into the 20′s, and they’d only been partnered for a year. 

Maybe that was why he felt…attached.

He felt exasperated at the thought, and he didn’t like how the sound of her crying was making him feel.

Were she anyone else, he never would have knocked on that damn door. 

It was hesitant, tentative. If anyone saw him, they’d imagine he was some sort of pervert, stalking outside of the women’s lavatory. He didn’t care what they thought, though.

He shouldn’t.

“Go away!” Marie choked out, probably burying her face into her hands like she always did when she was upset.

“Mar-”

“I sai-aid  **leave**!” she stuttered, her hiccup twisting his heart in ways that, logically speaking, it never should have.

“Marie,” he replied, his voice more firm this time, and her heavy crying simmered to sniffles the second she registered his voice. The silence stretched for a moment, and he opened his mouth to repeat himself, but she beat him to it.

“…Ste-Stein?” 

Fuck. 

Fuck, why did she have to sound so damn watery when she said his name? His brows furrowed, meeting in the middle, and his own voice came out far more tender than he intended, making him wince.

“Yes.” He waited for a moment. “I’m coming in.”

At that, he could practically feel her soul jump, jitter, stutter in nervousness.

“N-no! This is the- Stein! This is the g-girls bathroom!” she said, probably scrambling to get to the door before he could push it open, likely hoping that he would be too slow to prevent her from locking the door.

It was her fault, he figured. She should have had the good sense to lock it beforehand, which he ended up doing the second he stepped in. Marie’s momentum had been so great that she almost smacked into him, but he had slammed the door shut behind him, turning so he could face her as he flicked the lock.

“Wha-what the hell, Stein?” she asked, her tear-stained face twisted up into a pained expression.

“You’re crying,” he said, unhelpfully.

“Yeah? I didn’t notice,” she responded, turning on her heel and stalking over to the corner. A sure sign that she didn’t want him there.

Tough.

“Why?” he asked her, stepping forward, taking no notice of the room around him.

She winced, keeping her back turned.

“Stein-”

“Marie,” he cut her off, losing his very loose hold on patience.

“Stein, just let it go,” she said, and she sounded so defeated he couldn’t help but frown.

Perhaps a different approach would work. 

“Marie? What happened?” he asked, his voice dropping slightly in the way he had observed in TV-shows that Marie watched. It was comforting, he supposed. He watched as Marie hung her head.

“It’s stupid.”

“What was it?”

There was a long, drawn out silence before Marie finally turned around to face him, and he realized that her eyes had started to brim over with tears, once more.

“Just a dumb comment. Okay? It’s nothing.”

“Marie?”

“Please just let it go?”

“It upset you.”

For a single moment, her shoulders only tensed before they dropped, and she sniffled, nodding.

“Yeah.”

“What was it?” he asked, and he realized that his voice had never been so soothing, before.

He hated seeing her upset. He hated seeing her cry, even more.

“It was…” she waited a moment before she sighed, as though understanding that he wouldn’t give up until he got down to the bottom of it. “Michael.”

Stein’s brows twitched. “Yes?”

“He just…he just said something stupid to me, that’s all.”

“What did he say?” Stein asked, already irritated. The kid was insufferable enough without adding on slights he’d committed against Marie.

She reached up, wrapping her arms around herself. “Stein, it was stupid-”

“What did he say?” he asked again, and this time, he used what Marie always referred to as his “Meister Voice”. The one that was no nonsense.

She sucked in a deep breath between her teeth, and he could see her lower lip wobble.

“Stein, he…he said I was…” she sighed once more, through her nose, looking down as she hugged her elbows to her.

This time, he said nothing. He just had to wait. Besides which, he didn’t want to sound more biting than he intended. The thought of Marie being exposed to something that hurt her was making his blood thrum harder. He didn’t know which illness that could have been a symptom of, so he supposed he was just angry.

But anger quickly fizzled out when Marie opened her mouth once more. 

“He said I was…lopsided.” 

And Stein could only describe his reaction as confused.

“Lopsided?” he asked.

What the Death did that even  _mean_?

Marie cringed at the word, and she curled in closer to herself, looking as though she wanted to disappear.

“Don’t…don’t make me spell it out, please?” she requested, but his curiosity had been piqued and he wanted to know as he always wanted to know.

“What about you is lopsided?” he asked, and Marie only shook her head, looking away. “Marie-”

“My boobs, okay!? My boobs are lopsided. Are you happy now?” she asked, biting her lip and his eyes instinctively flicked down to her chest before he felt the blush crawl up his neck.

Oh.

_Oh._

His ears were burning.

“Oh,” he said, and that only made Marie’s fists clench, and he could see her soul grow tense. 

“Oh? That’s all you can say? Oh?”

That wasn’t good. Getting him mad was one thing, but getting Marie mad was an entirely different ballgame. She demolished everything in her sight.

“I-” he cut himself off. He didn’t actually know what to say. He’d never been in a situation like the one he was in, before. He couldn’t help but wonder why it even mattered to her. Why did she care about what some idiot thought of her breasts?

That would have been a stupid thing to ask.

“Just-” Marie sighed, shaking her head and raising her arms so they would cover her chest better, “Just…go?” she requested, and she sounded defeated when she did.

He didn’t  _understand_. It must have been exhausting for her to go through so many emotions so quickly. He could still see the effects the tears had on her: her cheeks puffed from sadness, her eyes bloodshot. She was upset. She was still upset. Usually, talking about it always made her feel better.

This time, that wasn’t the case.

She knew he was no good at this kind of stuff.

“They-” he began, but decided to cut himself off before he said anything stupid. “It’s normal,” he blurted out, instead, and Marie’s eyes narrowed. Her usually kind, loving, amber eyes. 

Fuck. He’d said the wrong thing.

Why didn’t social situations come with handbooks?

“So they’re…lopsided?”

“They’re-” he sighed in frustration. “They’re  _fine_ , Marie.”

There. Maybe that was slightly less terrible to say. From what he remembered of his partnership with Spirit, those of the female persuasion did not like to have their mammaries commented upon.

He was hoping to avoid a situation in which he had to. 

The silence stretched for far too long.

“…fine?” she asked, and when he snuck a glance at her, barely even realizing he had looked away in the first place, she had a warm blush settling over her face that looked different than one she’d develop immediately after crying. 

“Um…y-yeah. They’re fine.” He coughed, feeling strangely out of place in the girl’s bathroom, commenting upon what was beneath his weapon partner’s brassiere. 

“E-even compared to…to other girls?” 

His mind screeched to a halt. No no no. There was  **no**  correct answer to a question like that. He didn’t know much about social interactions but he knew that much. 

But, even worse, as his brain tried to catch up to him, he realized that, though he looked at people’s chests to see their souls, he hadn’t taken any notice of anyone else’s breasts.

Except Marie’s.

That was normal, right? She was his weapon partner. He’d pay more attention to her than anyone else.

…Was he a pervert? Why had he been remembering Marie’s chest? Why did he only remember her and no one else? Why was he thinking about such things.

He needed to stop thinking about Marie and her breasts. Things were awkward enough as it were.

“Stein?” Marie asked, and he knew she was, for lack of a better word, vulnerable in that moment. She needed an answer. Her mood would be determined by his answer.

DeathDamn, he might as well tell her the truth.

“I…I didn’t notice,” he admitted, and he watched as her eyes went wide, seemingly staring right through him.

“Didn’t notice?” she asked, her voice high and curious.

“…anyone else’s,” he clarified, and when he swallowed, his throat felt all too dry. His mouth felt dry. Were his palms sweating?

Marie’s eyebrows raised up and she lit up as bright as a candle when her lips formed a little “o” shape and she could only stutter out “O-oh!” The silence was, for once, awkward between them until she broke it.

“…but you noticed…mine?”

Maybe he could escape through one of the vents.

“…yes.”

“…and they’re…fine?”

This time, he didn’t hesitate, though he felt like the bathroom was suddenly a sauna. “Yeah.”

“Oh.”

He felt like fidgeting. His glasses were sliding down his nose. His fingers were twitching. When he repeated “Oh,” back at her, he felt like some sort of idiot.

But then he noticed how she relaxed, and he seemed to breathe in easier once her soul calmed. As he looked at her face, he took in the fact that she was…smiling?

“Marie?”

“Thanks,” she told him, and he didn’t know what she was thanking him for, but he felt like he had stumbled his way to the finish line, anyway. Because she wasn’t crying anymore and that was the goal from the beginning, right?

So why did he feel so warm?

“Yeah,” he said, stupidly, staring at her as she let her arms drop to her sides, a giggling bubbling out of her.

“Yeah,” she replied back, her smile widening to a grin. He didn’t know how long he spent like that, simply looking at each other, but she laughed again after a few moments and reached out to grab his sleeve. 

“C’mon,” she started, tugging him toward the exit, and he followed because it was Marie, and he knew he would follow her anywhere. 

“Let’s get out of here.”


End file.
